affection

noun af·fec·tion \ ə-ˈfek-shən \

Updated on: 20 Apr 2018

Definition of affection

1 : a feeling of liking and caring for someone or something : tender attachment : fondness

She had a deep affection for her parents.

2 : a moderate feeling or emotion

3 a (1) : a bodily condition

(2) : disease, malady

a pulmonary affection

b : attribute

shape and weight are affections of bodies

4 obsolete : partiality, prejudice

5 : the feeling aspect (as in pleasure) of consciousness

6 a : propensity, disposition

b archaic : affectation 1

7 : the action of affecting : the state of being affected

8 : umlaut 2 —used especially in the grammar of the Celtic languages

—

affectionless

play \-ləs\ adjective

See affection defined for English-language learners

Examples of affection in a Sentence

She has deep affection for her parents.
He shows great affection for his grandchildren.
feelings of love and affection
He now looks back on those years with great affection.
She developed a deep affection for that country and its people.

Recent Examples of affection from the Web

Women were more likely to increase communication and give affection than men, and conversely men were more likely than women to give gifts or do a nice gesture.

— cindi may, Scientific American, "How To Reconcile With A Romantic Partner," 17 Apr. 2018
Watching, the adult artist regards her younger, giddily awkward self with a mixture of embarrassment and affection.

— christine dolen, miamiherald, "'Fun Home' raises resonant and painful questions about family life | Miami Herald," 16 Apr. 2018
But what is clear, and what is so moving about their relationship, was the level of trust and affection between them.

— chloe schama, Vogue, "A New Book Unveils the Extraordinary, Unknown Woman Who Was Michelangelo’s Best Friend," 16 Apr. 2018
Algot Severln Olson sued his boss for $100,000 but ended up settling and valuing his ex-wife’s affections at $500 — enough to pay his berth on a ship back to Sweden, according to a Chicago Daily Tribune story.

— steve schmadeke, chicagotribune.com, "With settlement of jilted spouse's lawsuit, an archaic law nears a quiet end," 13 Apr. 2018
But George is also the exact kind of shoulder-checking, emotion-mocking bro-pal whose authentic affection for Davis wouldn’t stop him from drawing magic-marker dicks on Davis’ face if the human fell asleep in the gorilla enclosure.

— tasha robinson, The Verge, "Rampage is laughably dumb, but at least there’s plenty of rampaging," 11 Apr. 2018
Frequent perusers of This Space know of my affection-bordering-on-weirdness for the toonamint.

— paul daugherty, Cincinnati.com, "Can we do it all over again this week? Masters, March Madness, spring training are done.," 10 Apr. 2018
Diego Rivera, whose reported affection for María Félix was not reciprocated, painted a large portrait of the actress in 1949.

— judy cantor-navas, Billboard, "María Félix is Today's Google Doodle: 5 Things to Know About the Mexican Film Icon," 8 Apr. 2018
Children will be fascinated by the practical details of lighthouse tending and delighted by Blackall’s evident affection for her subject.

— bruce handy, New York Times, "If Graphic Novels Are Hip for Adults, Why Not Picture Books?," 6 Apr. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'affection.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

affectation and affection

Affectation looks a lot like a much more common word, affection. But the two are used very differently.

The more familiar word, affection, in modern use means "a feeling of liking and caring for someone or something," as in "They show their dog a lot of affection."

Affectation, on the other hand, refers to a form of behavior that's unnatural to the person engaging in it, and that is meant to impress other people. A phony accent someone uses to sound more sophisticated, for example, can be considered an affectation, as can pretending to know all about some obscure band in order to seem cool.

The words don't have much in common in their use, but their similarity in appearance is not coincidence. Both have to do with one of the trickiest words in the language: affect.

Affect is one of the most frequently looked-up words in the dictionary, primarily because of its regular confusion with effect. The short rationale that you often hear when it comes to distinguishing the two is that effect is usually a noun and affect is a verb. The breakdown isn't all that simple, however, and what makes things even more confusing is that there are two verb entries for affect.

One affect entry is for the sense meaning "to produce an effect upon (someone)" or "to act upon (a person, a person's mind or feelings, etc.) so as to effect a response." This is the sense that connects to affection, as in "We were affected by the young woman's heartfelt speech." Being affected by something in this way doesn't necessarily result in affection, but it can.

The other verb affect is defined as "to make a display of liking or using : cultivate" or "to put a pretense on : feign." It is used when talking about things like styles or mannerisms, as in "He affected a British accent and tweedy look after reading nothing but Sherlock Holmes stories for months on end."

The two verbs affect took different etymological paths from the same origin. The "put on a pretense" sense of affect derives via Middle English and Anglo-French from the Latin affectāre, meaning "to try to accomplish, strive after, pretend to have." Affectāre is a derivative of afficere, which means "to produce an effect on, exert an influence on"; the affect related to affection is from a variant of afficere.

Origin and Etymology of affection

Middle English affeccioun "capacity for feeling, emotion, desire, love," borrowed from Anglo-French, "desire, love, inclination, partiality," borrowed from Latin affectiōn-, affectiō "frame of mind, feeling, feeling of attachment," from affec- (variant stem of afficere "to produce an effect on, exert an influence on") + -tiōn-, -tiō, suffix of action nouns — more at ³affect

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 14th century

See Words from the same year

affection Synonyms

Synonym Discussion of affection

feeling, emotion, affection, sentiment, passion mean a subjective response to a person, thing, or situation. feeling denotes any partly mental, partly physical response marked by pleasure, pain, attraction, or repulsion; it may suggest the mere existence of a response but imply nothing about the nature or intensity of it.